Stowers Institute Sets Up Year-Round Satellite Lab at the MBL
In 2022, scientists from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research did what many scientists dream of: They found a way to stay in Woods Hole all year.
The Kansas City-based institute has established a year-round satellite lab in the MBL’s Rowe Building, available to up to 6-8 Stowers investigators at a time.
“It’s a fantastic partnership in discovery,” said Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado, president and chief scientific officer of the Stowers Institute.
Stowers has much in common with the MBL, with research and educational programs in molecular and cell biology, development and regeneration, genetics and genomics, neuroscience, systems biology, and evolutionary biology.
And Sánchez Alvarado, who has had many formative experiences at MBL, wants to maximize opportunities for Stowers investigators and students to access the MBL’s abundant resources and natural beauty.
“Some experiments can only be done here,” said MBL Director Nipam Patel. “And in other cases, MBL can provide opportunities to take their research to a new level.”
Stowers investigators now have year-round access to MBL’s advanced microscopy resources and research organisms through the Marine Resources Center. And they can explore the rich biodiversity of Woods Hole, by land or by sea.
The advantages of the partnership are described in two articles by Stowers Science Writer Rachel Scanza, “Why Woods Hole?” and “A Lab with a View.”
Among them is that palpable Woods Hole “charge” -- the excitement of discovery fed by a continuous flux of intensely curious scientists and students through the MBL.
“There is so much energy in this campus that we all feed off of to be even better than we thought we could,” said Augusto Ortego Granillo, a predoctoral researcher at the Stowers Institute.
The Stowers Satellite Lab is a welcome addition to the MBL, Patel said, noting that a few other institutes have expressed interest in setting up a similar arrangement. “It adds to the vibrancy to the campus,” he said.
And both partners anticipate the year-round interaction will kindle innovative science, as highlighted by Sánchez Alvarado: “I hope that our partnership will serve members of both institutions in coming together to produce entirely new solutions to longstanding questions in biology.”
